A Lost Dream
by Ginger companion
Summary: Donna regains her memories and meets the new Doctor...


A Lost Dream

Donna Noble was out getting groceries with her mother, Sylvia. She was having a bad day… she often had bad days at the moment; she never used to, up until about a year ago and then… she just started feeling… sad. Sylvia and Wilf, her gramps, had commented on this to her a few times but she could never tell them the reason why… not because she didn't want them to know… but because she didn't know what the reason was herself. She just felt like something was missing from her life, she just couldn't quite put her finger on what it was. She'd been having strange dreams too… dreams of the stars and never ending time and… sometimes, a man. A completely bonkers man whom she never clearly saw; he was always blurred out or she would wake up just before his face was revealed–

"Which washing powder do you prefer, Donna?" was the sentence that snapped her back into reality and the realization that she had been staring at the same washing powder for the past five minutes in the middle of Tesco's supermarket.

"Oh for goodness sake get your head back on earth and help me out here" snapped Sylvia as she snatched one of the powders out of Donna's hands and chucked it into the trolley.

"You should get a job; would help concentrate your mind you know-"

"Mum, I've got a job!" replied Donna in irritation. "I'm a temp, remember! Best one in Chiswick I'll have you know."

"A temp isn't a proper job! There's a new opening for Don Charwood's assistant just down town. You should apply; great pay too."

Letting Sylvia drone on Donna allowed herself to slip back into her daydreams; she preferred them mightily to the reality she had at the moment. Having finished the shopping Sylvia insisted that she drive them home because at the rate Donna was at with her daydreaming they would crash before they'd even left the car park. Donna knew she was right, if a little rude, so she complied and dropped herself unenthusiastically into the passenger's seat.

"I'm gunna go for a walk." Donna told her mum when they got back in the house and had finished packing away the groceries. "Get some fresh air…"

"A walk? Well that's the most exercise you'll have done in you're whole-"

"Oh don't start mum I just want some air. _That alright?_" She finished sarcastically as she grabbed her house keys and left.

Chiswick wasn't the best place for walks… she really longed for a decent forest that she could get lost in but the local park would have to do. She slumped herself onto a bench under a tree and sighed. _Get yourself together Donna. Mum's right about how much you've been out of mind recently… _She sighed again. _I just wish I could put my finger on what I need right now- _

"Oh my God." Donna stood up. She was looking at a man she had never seen before in her entire life but he was staring back. He had stopped dead in his tracks like a dear in headlights. He was a funny looking man. Young, with an odd sense of style; a tweed coat with classic braces underneath and trousers that were that little bit too short so they were flashing the red socks pulled up over his ankles.

Suddenly Donna's head was pounding. It was a headache she'd never experienced before, she felt like her entire mind was becoming a compact object that was ready to crack open her skull. Her vision began clouding over as the headache intensified and the last thing she saw was the man running over to her. Then she collapsed.

_A giant wasp was flying right at her. Then she was in a large metal box… it stank. She was looking at maybe a hundred men stood in front of her with weird faces with… tentacles hanging down where their mouths should be. It changed again, now she was looking at a small man of about 4 ft 11 with a strangely round shaped head and face who was chanting strange war-like shouts ferociously._

The blackness ensued more tightly over her vision briefly but then it began to clear. Her head was still pounding profusely and she didn't open her eyes for a few minutes because the pain was so rife.

When she finally did open her eyes Donna found herself laying on a see through glass floor of a room she sort of recognized… An orange hue all around and a huge console in the middle surrounded by numerous oddly shaped pillars going up to the incredibly high ceiling. It was different than she remembered- wait… she remembered. Suddenly Donna remembered all those strange images she'd dreamed about and also remembered the adventures behind them… but more importantly... she remembered the Doctor.

Suddenly tears were streaming down her face; she couldn't help it… she just had to sit there on the floor of the TARDIS and cry; not of sadness, however, but of relief. Finally that feeling of something being missing from her life had disappeared and at last she felt whole. She finally felt worth something, for the past year she had felt pointless, wondering why she even existed but now…now she remembered.

She stood up wiping the ever-gushing tears from her cheeks and scanned the room for the Doctor, her old spaceman. She couldn't wait to hug his skinny figure. Then slap him… hard… for letting her forget all this.

"Doctor? You in here?" It felt strange, those words coming out of her mouth, but it felt so, so right. "It's- it's me, Donna! I remember… I remember now, Doctor," she called out.

After a few minutes of no reply Donna decided to explore the TARDIS… she couldn't understand why it was different... why it was new. She walked over to the console and stroked it while walking around its edge.

"_I was gunna be with you… forever." The tears welled up in her eyes._

"_I know." He replied with an ache in his voice._

"_I… I don't want to go…"_

"_Donna…" No… I won't look at you... not now. _

"_Donna, look at me." She didn't like it when he did that… when he knew what she was thinking. "We had some good times didn't we…"_

"_Yeah" was the only reply she could bring as her tears were stifling her voice. _

"_You were… brilliant." He said as he moved closer. She tried to take a step back because she knew what was coming now... she knew this was it but the doctor held her shoulders softly as the tears streamed down her face incessantly. _

"_No. No, please-" She begged him as he placed his fingers on her temples -"no ... no! No! No! No-" _

From there the memory finished and the next thing she remembered after that was being on the phone to her friend in her kitchen and then the year embarked of her feeling empty. She thought she should maybe feel angry at the doctor for doing that to her but she knew that it really was for her own good; she was part human part time lord at that point and it was taking over her mind... any longer and she would have probably died. Which was why she was wondering how she was okay now… apart from the still pounding headache she was fine; she figured something must have happened since then… but what?

Then she remembered the man she saw running towards her before she collapsed… the man whom she felt a strange connection to… and it clicked. The Doctor had explained to her before what would happen if he died… how timelords do something where they turn into a new body, a new person; what was it called? Re-something… re-engineering? Something like that… and since she had been connected with the TARDIS and the energy from the very first time she'd met the Doctor, it must have changed something in her mind when he changed and then made it possible for her to remember… then she just needed something to trigger the energy in her brain and queue her memories to come flooding back… and that must have been what happened when she saw that man…

But then another thought crossed Donna's mind… Was her spaceman... not her spaceman any more, but someone else entirely?

"Doctor!" She called out for him with a hint of panic in her tone… she had to see him… to confirm if her thoughts were right. And then, from one of the large cavities on the other side of the room, the man in the tweed coat timidly appeared. A gasp escaped involuntarily from Donna's lips as she saw him. It wasn't her spaceman, her skinny old spaceman but a new, younger, _skinny non-the-less_, man… but she knew it was him. It _was_ the Doctor except she also knew, sadly, that her thoughts had been correct and he had indeed changed.

"Um... hello!" He waved awkwardly with an anxious smile as he walked closer towards her. The tears were back, welling up and blurring Donna's vision. She wiped them angrily away as she tried to get her head around all this.

"…Doctor?" she really didn't know what to say.

"Yep… it's me… I know I - OW." She'd slapped him.

"It's not…" the tears were streaming down her face even more at this point. It wasn't him. She just couldn't see her old spaceman, her best friend, in this man stood in front of her.

"It's not _you… _you're not… I can't…" she stammered as the tears were flowing from her eyes, she couldn't stop them, "you can't have… I…" the man came closer towards her and took her shoulders softly in his hands.

"Donna, look in my eyes – _Donna_." She was looking away; she couldn't bring herself to look at him.

"_Look into my eyes._" He continued firmly. She took a second to look down and sum up the courage and then brought her eyes up to his face… new mouth, new nose, new eyebrows, new hair and then she looked at his eyes… deep, big, brown puppy eyes, just like those of her spaceman… she could see entire galaxies in them, an entire life of happiness, sadness, loneliness… adventure… and she saw her spaceman. Her Doctor… her gangly, foolishly intelligent, gentle, over caring, beautiful best friend. Before she knew what she was doing she had wrapped her arms as tightly as she could around him, feeling like if she ever let go the world would collapse, and he hugged her back, did he ever hug her back. It was wonderful, she finally had him back in her life; her spaceman.


End file.
